Cable Connection: The Way to Surf

31 Pages 7721 Words

l dial-up telephone modem connections. These voiceband connections are limited to 56 Kbps or less. Surfing the ‘Net with a dial-up modem is usually a click-and-wait experience. There is a tremendous demand for faster Internet connections. The Telecommunications Act of 1996 opened the way for cable TV (CATV) companies to become full-fledged telecommunications companies, offering two-way voice and data communications services, in addition to television programming (Clark, 1999). Cable companies that offer these extended services are known as Multiple Service Operators (MSO). The aspiring Multiple Service Operators realize there is a sizable market of Web surfers who feel a “need for speed”, and they want to be the ones to meet that need. Cable modems are devices that allow high-speed access to the Internet by way of a cable television network. Cable modems work much the same way as traditional dial-up telephone modems, but cable modems are much more powerful. Instead of using telephone lines as the connection medium to the Internet, cable m...